A common desire in the pouring of concrete floors for basements, patios, and the like, is the installation of one or more electrical outlets in the concrete floor in order to provide electrical service in a given floor area. In order to meet this need, electrical boxes have been proposed for concrete pours. These boxes are placed within the forms that will receive the concrete pour and the concrete is poured around the electrical box, and, after the concrete cures, an electrical component is mounted within the box.
One problem that commonly occurs when an electrical box is placed within the form area that will receive the concrete pour is the shifting of the orientation of the electrical box as a result of the heavy concrete mixture forcing the box out of the desired plumb vertical orientation. In other cases, the concrete surface is purposely sloped and the concrete pour forces the electrical box out of alignment with the concrete surface. In either case, an adjustment must be made in order to mount the electrical component, such as a duplex receptacle, level with the concrete surface.
Several electrical boxes have been proposed in order to compensate for the misalignment of an electrical box as a result of a concrete pour. Typically, these electrical boxes use a leveling ring that can be adjusted to align the electrical component with the level of the concrete. Two types of leveling rings have been proposed, including those attached by clips within the electrical box and those secured to the box by adhesive. In order to be able to level in any desired direction, the outer surface of the adhesive attached leveling rings is arcuate in shape. Although electrical boxes with leveling rings secured by adhesive have been proposed, as a result of the arcuate outer surface of the ring, the amount of surface available for adhesive contact of the ring with the inner wall of the electrical box is minimal. This minimal contact between the leveling ring and the inner wall of the electrical box has been known to cause loosening of the ring from the electrical box inner wall and thus causes loosening of the electrical component mounted therein.
What is needed therefore is an improved electrical box for concrete pours that enables secure mounting of an electrical device therein and also enables mounting of both flat and pop-up electrical covers. Furthermore, what is needed is an electrical box for concrete pours that provides the capability to mount both high and low voltage components in the same box.